How Does a Traditionalist Vote? | The American Conservative

The election is over, and as a traditionalist conservative, I had a heck of a time figuring out how to protest vote this time. Not that it mattered much in the end given the deep red complexion of Tennessee or the fact that GOP reaped the effects of failing to advance immigration reform under Bush, as well as the disdain the rhetoric of some in the party caused among those who prefer their politics without the reminder of the Know-nothings. This article lays out the issues pretty well.

I’ve said on Facebook that I’m tempted to cut out the middleman this November and write in a vote for Goldman Sachs. But if you’re a traditionalist conservative and you want to accept one of the offerings officially on your ballot, which do you choose?

For partisans, this is a no-brainer. For conservatives in the vein of, say, Russell Kirk, it’s anything but. Faced with the non-choice between Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Thomas Dewey in 1944, Kirk said no to empire and voted for Norman Thomas, the Socialist Party candidate. There was no Fox News to tell him a conservative couldn’t do that.

For all that Kirk didn’t like libertarians — “chirping sectaries,” he called them — if he were in search of a peace candidate today he might well consider the Libertarian Party’s Gary Johnson. Or, closer to Norman Thomas, the Green Party’s Jill Stein.